Since morning, the langer of the army had closed down. Food came in the evening.
This was not first time that Mohammed Riaz and 30 other families of Jammu's Gujjar Basti have turned homeless. Back in 1999, during the Kargil war, all these families had been uprooted from their homes in RS Pura. They had rebuilt their lives on the banks of the Tawi river. Now, they have lost everything all over again.
On September 6, when Tawi flooded its banks, these people just had to rush out of their homes to save their lives. There was no time to carry even the most basic items. A change of clothes. Or food.
Now, they are at the army's makeshift camp, depending on the free food. But even that stopped this morning when the langer was dismantled. Even by evening, they hadn't had a morsel.
Later a three-ton army truck came in, carrying rice, dal, chapati and vegetables - fulfilling army jawans' pledge to "help as long as they can". But there's not much they can do.
The army cannot be engaged in relief and rehabilitation for too long, since all training activities get suspended, which in turn, can hamper operational preparedness. After the first crush of a crisis is over, they hand over the operations to the state government.
For the camp inmates, uncertainty looms large. "Government officials came and took down our details, but they never came back," said Riyaz's wife Yasmin Akhtar.
But neither Riaz nor his family expect or want help from anyone -- least of all the state government.
"Had I been able to move, I could have worked as a labourer. Just pray that I get better and can work again," said Riaz, for whom the floods had come as a double calamity. A welder by profession, he had been rendered immobile by an accident three months ago
Then, there was Farooq Malik -- a portly man with a trimmed beard who used to run a diary. Most of his cattle have gone. So has his house. Today, he has another identity - "Chachu", a sobriquet bestowed by the 15-odd kids hanging onto his shirt-tails.
Chachu's concern showed: "Over the last 15 years we had built our houses. Now we have nothing again. But it is not about us or our homes alone. What about their education? Back in 1999, most of us did not have kids."